


Caught

by somekindofseizure



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, MSR, Post-Episode: s07e17 All Things, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:50:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6450556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somekindofseizure/pseuds/somekindofseizure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt:  "I see the way you look at me when you think I don't notice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught

 

“What?” Mulder asks, casting a defensive jawline over his shoulder.  “What is that look?”  

Silence.

“Look, I know that I’ve made things weird around here.  It’s been years and years of just… this.  You and me, and our… what would you call it?  Friendship… partnership?  However you want to define it.  I can imagine how it would be weird for you.”

Nothing.

“I slept with her, okay? I just slept with her.  It doesn’t necessarily mean anything… I’m not saying she’s not hot enough, she’s beautiful, she’s really beautiful, but so are you.  And she’s smart and she’s… Look, it’s not a competition.  You can both be in my life… Oh come on, don’t just turn your back on me like that.  I’m trying to talk to you.”

He rubs his forehead in his hands, leans forward, digging his elbows into his knees hard enough to be sure he is awake, this is happening.  He has actually gone and done it, turned his whole life upside down for one stupid night of passion.  Not because of anything to do with him; if he wanted to have feelings for her, he could.There’s nothing  _wrong_  with him. 

 _Yes, there is._   It hasn’t been said, but it may as well.  He looks up, his eyes burning, his voice spitting with self-loathing.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.  You think I can’t do it?  You think I’m just this shell of a man who dedicates his life to specters and shadows and little green men.  You think it’s just porn and aliens, that’s what my life is about, that’s all I’m capable of, just because that’s what you see day in and day out?”

He looks over at the other side of the couch, where just about twenty-four hours ago he had  _her,_ the woman in question, undressed, pressed awkwardly into the corner of the couch.  After some heavy petting, she wiggled out and climbed on top of him, tilted his head back over the arm of the couch, her hand flat against his Adam’s apple.  She slid her tongue so far down his throat he thought she might come up with change from between the cushions.  They struggled to get each other’s shirts off at the same time, pawing like two kittens on their hind legs, engaged in a practice fight.  

She pressed herself against the fly of his jeans until she tore the seam of the simple underwear she’d been wearing, the ones she hadn’t been expecting to let anyone see.  Just a tiny tear, but enough for him to remember, enough to make him hard at the thought of it.  And he shouldn’t be thinking about it.  He’s in the middle of setting things straight.

“I’m not in love with her, okay?  I mean, I know you’re not asking me that but I need you to know.  I’m not in love with her.”

They moved through time signatures and positions like dance partners.  Hard and fast, slow and tender, squeezed tight against him, at a tongue-teasing distance, spinning… spinning… spinning.  

But it was still only one night.  

They had fucked until she fell asleep on top of him.  When his neck got stiff, he picked her up like a princess in a forest and carried her to the bed wrapped up in his Navajo blanket.

As he thinks of her creeping out of bed this morning quietly, his voice pipes back up in a hoarse mumble, eager to settle questions that haven’t been asked.  His chest is tight with fear. “If I am in love with her then… then I’m going to need you more than ever.  To get me through it.”

There’s a knock on the door. 

“It’s open.”  

She makes a film noir out of her entrance:  files in hand, shiny red lipstick and a rain-slicked black trench coat tied, belted tightly around her waist.  She leans her umbrella against the wall and shakes out her hair, wavy with weather. And he knows he’s been lying this entire conversation.  He knows he’s in love with her, he’s known for so long he can’t remember now when he didn’t know, and that was only about thirty seconds ago.   He goes to her, kissing her softly on the mouth.   She tosses the files onto the counter.

“Hi,” she says, as if she’s a game show winner who’s just chosen the right door. He is moved by the idea that she’d been insecure about seeing him, that she wasn’t sure how he would receive her.

“Hi.  I was just talking about you,” he says without letting her go.

“Talking to who?”

“The fish.  They’re having some jealousy issues after what they witnessed the other night.”

“Oh,” she says as he tangles one hand in her hair.  She hooks her nails onto the trench’s belt buckle, slides it out slowly, the material shaking raindrops onto his arms as it loosens.  And when it falls open, his lungs stop working for what feels like eternity.

“Sweet Jesus.”

She pulls him toward the bedroom in nothing but lingerie, whispering conspiratorially.  “We should go in here.  What we’re about to do could traumatize them forever.”  


End file.
